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More strange descriptions


Harry Dolphin

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That picture is fancier than the one in Mom's kitchen wood stove when I was very little in the 1950's and we didn't have electricity. That reservoir was a slightly rounded rectangular basin with a lid. It could be lifted out of the stove top for cleaning and there was a flapper from the combustion chamber to let you control the flow of hot air around it.

 

So I'd be looking for a cylindrical or rectangular container of less than 5 gallons.

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That's why I said that I did not expect to be able to find it. Looks like an apartment complex behind a warehouse. There are hundreds of old stations along the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers that have not been found in many decades. Most are paved over, torn down, or otherwise unfindable. (Including the several hundred set in concrete in clay tile pipes in 1913 or 1914 that have never been seen again. Oh, well.)

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R1953''NOTE.--FROM LETTER OF DR. L.D.P. COLLINS, BELLINGHAM, WASH.,

TR1953''9/23/40.

TR1953''

TR1953''I WISH TO REPORT TO YOU THAT I FOUND ONE OF YOUR REFERENCE MARKS

TR1953''THE OTHER DAY WHILE WALKING ON THE BEACH AND THOUGHT IT WOULD

TR1953''BE OF INTEREST TO YOUR OFFICE. THE MARKER WAS FOUND ON CYPRESS

TR1953''ISLAND, IN PUGET SOUND. IT IS MARKED TIDE POINT 1939. IF YOU

TR1953''WISH TO HAVE THE REFERENCE MARK, YOU ARE WELCOME TO IT AS I

TR1953''BROUGHT IT HOME WITH ME.

TR1953

 

stumbled across this description / comment entry dated 9/23/40 :rolleyes:<_<:unsure:

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Huh? He found a disk, but didn't like the coords (well, it is scaled...), and it had no elevation (I guess he means on the disk), so he re-set the disk (where?), but didn't do any survey work. Riiiiiight. So what did he use for coords? elevation?

 

That is a seriously suspicious / weird entry.

Edited by Klemmer & TeddyBearMama
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Hmmmmm... :anibad:

 

The 1965 description is about the same for many marks I have recovered successfully. Usually the culvert and wingwall are there, or they aren't.

 

I have seen similar for caching though...

 

'Couldn't find it.

Must be missing.

Left a replacement.'

 

I've seen surveyors do this:

 

Found it. Didn't like it. Set my own.

 

I've even seen them find 3 corners and have to figure out which is "The one".

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The supplement to Special Pub. 156 was confidential at the time and were "to be furnished only to responsible officials of the Army, Navy, federal, and territorial surveys." It in fact was so secret it has CONFIDENTIAL stamped on each page!

 

While the lat/long for the mark DE RUSSEY (presumably TU1229 (DE RUSSY 1927)), the top brass obviously didn't want anyone to actually find the mark, looking at the go-to:

DE RUSSEY (Oahu Island, L. G. Simmons, 1927). - A standard disk station mark in secret position.
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The supplement to Special Pub. 156 was confidential at the time and were "to be furnished only to responsible officials of the Army, Navy, federal, and territorial surveys." It in fact was so secret it has CONFIDENTIAL stamped on each page!

 

While the lat/long for the mark DE RUSSEY (presumably TU1229 (DE RUSSY 1927)), the top brass obviously didn't want anyone to actually find the mark, looking at the go-to:

DE RUSSEY (Oahu Island, L. G. Simmons, 1927). - A standard disk station mark in secret position.

 

OOOOOO!

I certainly hope you are going after this one!

Since it's now a museum, the curator would possibly be interested in the additional history aspect of the recovery.

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>It in fact was so secret it has CONFIDENTIAL stamped on each page

 

That's incorrect terminology. There is a hierarchy of Security Classification levels, with SECRET above CONFIDENTIAL, and other things above that. My former employer had no provisions for dealing with CONFIDENTIAL so we had to treat it as SECRET, with all the procedures and precautions such as approved safes. signing in and out, reading only in offices not cubicles, no photocopies, etc. I don't miss that part of the job.

 

I'm glad the document has a declassification note, so I don't have to wipe my home computer. Someone once gave me a floppy disk to let me copy a file at work and we noticed it had something classified on it through someone's confusion. Had to take the computer off the network and let the security folks do a careful cleanup on it before I could use it again.

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The supplement to Special Pub. 156 was confidential at the time and were "to be furnished only to responsible officials of the Army, Navy, federal, and territorial surveys." It in fact was so secret it has CONFIDENTIAL stamped on each page!

 

While the lat/long for the mark DE RUSSEY (presumably TU1229 (DE RUSSY 1927)), the top brass obviously didn't want anyone to actually find the mark, looking at the go-to:

DE RUSSEY (Oahu Island, L. G. Simmons, 1927). - A standard disk station mark in secret position.

OOOOOO!

I certainly hope you are going after this one!

Since it's now a museum, the curator would possibly be interested in the additional history aspect of the recovery.

I wasn't planning on it, but do you think I really should? How should I word a letter/e-mail? I've never really written a "please let me on to your roof" letter before, let alone to get atop a US Army facility. :laughing:

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I wasn't planning on it, but do you think I really should? How should I word a letter/e-mail? I've never really written a "please let me on to your roof" letter before, let alone to get atop a US Army facility. :(

 

Most certainly you should at least make the effort!

I showed up at the Federal Courthouse (!) here in Phoenix..unannounced...and was able to get an escort to the roof with minimal delay. Didn't find the mark (apparently covered by new roofing materials), but at least I got to look!

 

I would keep it simple. If they need to know more, they will ask.

There is an NGS benchmark reported to be on the roof.

You are an amateur hobbyist, and you would like their indulgence in allowing you (with proper escort) to look for it. You know exactly where it is supposed to be, so the search should not take a long time, or multiple visits. You intend to report your findings to the NGS, which will help maintain the integrity of the national database of usable benchmarks.

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Another strange one - at least the original 1881 monumentation was. PUU PILI USGS 1881 (TU2726):

 

IN THE NORTHERN PART OF HAWAII, IN THE CENTRAL PART OF NORTH KOHALA, ON PUU PILI. MARKED BY A STAND FOR THE INSTRUMENT CONSISTING OF FOUR OHIA POSTS AND BY THREE BOTTLES BURIED, RADIATING HORIZONTALLY FROM THE STATION, AND GINGER PLANTED OVER THEM.

 

I'll be on Pu'u Pili again tomorrow, though I'm not sure if we're going to get all the way to the "summit".

 

Odd but potentially effective idea to plant ginger around the station. Ginger grows thickly and blocks obscuring brush from growing over the same area, but at the same time it builds thick mats of roots and rotting material that could eventually bury the station. We occasionally remove ginger from the pu'u to let the native understory return.

 

Photos of Pu'u Pili from Kohala Mountain Road, if you're curious:

 

http://www.pbase.com/image/77534188/original

http://www.pbase.com/image/77534076/original

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I've seen surveyors do this:

 

Found it. Didn't like it. Set my own.

 

I've even seen them find 3 corners monuments and have to figure out which is "The one".

 

There...fixed. There can only be ONE corner.

 

This happens way more often than I'd like to admit. We call it "pincushioning" and most of us despise this practice.

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The edge of the city addition I am in is two lots away from mine, and then there is a new addition platted in the last couple years. There are two pins about 2 inches apart. And the newer pin is inside the old addition, not along the boundary between them. The new plat shows some old pins as found, but not that one. But I talked to the crew the morning they came around looking for the old pins and I saw that very one uncovered. I don't understand.

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>>I don't understand.

 

The new crew decided they were better "expert measurers" than the surveyor(s) that preceeded them. Rather than hold the old pin which they determined was 2 inches off, they pounded in their own pin creating the "pin cushion" and the confusion that Okiebryan mentioned above.

Edited by tosborn
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II

 

I wasn't planning on it, but do you think I really should? How should I word a letter/e-mail? I've never really written a "please let me on to your roof" letter before, let alone to get atop a US Army facility. :D

 

Most certainly you should at least make the effort!

I showed up at the Federal Courthouse (!) here in Phoenix..unannounced...and was able to get an escort to the roof with minimal delay. Didn't find the mark (apparently covered by new roofing materials), but at least I got to look!

 

I would keep it simple. If they need to know more, they will ask.

There is an NGS benchmark reported to be on the roof.

You are an amateur hobbyist, and you would like their indulgence in allowing you (with proper escort) to look for it. You know exactly where it is supposed to be, so the search should not take a long time, or multiple visits. You intend to report your findings to the NGS, which will help maintain the integrity of the national database of usable benchmarks.

I made initial contact with the curator of the US Army Museum regarding another mark and mention this one to her. I had not heard from her in a while, so I forgot about it. But today I received an e-mail - she (or another member of the staff) had visited the mark! And took pictures!

4abdc580-5814-47ae-8ca2-a7e10992632d.jpg

Very cool. As an aside, do you think I should report this to the NGS? Something like "Mark is on the property of the US Army Museum. Was visited by the curator of the museum and photographic evidence was provided."?

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I wouldn't.

It doesn't seem quite 'Kosher'.

I wouldn't even report it on Geocaching.com, but you DO have a photo... :laughing:

I put it as a note on GC. Seems about right. Let people know that you can't just casually walk up to the mark or anything. I thought about mentioning to the curator to submit it to the NGS, but then I thought "what'd be the difference between her doing it and me doing it?" I don't want the +1 to my stats - that's not the incentive - I just thought I'd not bother her again.

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